Cowboys Roundup

Rumor Mill Odds & Ends

Every day there are countless story’s out there about the Dallas Cowboys. Many of them test your sense of reality and others you just can’t believe. All for the sake of a story. Often times to get people happy or angry or simply baffled. That frosts me that they reach for a story and what it all means. Let’s take a look at a few of the recent gems and see if we can make better sense of them and not loose our collective minds in the process.

A hot topic is La’el Collins becoming the new RT. Countless reports and tweets each day regarding this. It all started with a photo in a tweet, that had #71 outside at RT. Lets dig into this just a little. Chaz Green is the guy, they’d like to see take the position, but for the team activities they just had, Chaz hadn’t been cleared to work out as he’s coming off surgery. Therefore, you had to slide someone into that RT spot. Its a great time to take a look at Collins who played tackle in college. Then they get the bonus in seeing former first rounder, Jonathan Cooper at LG. They can look at the recently signed Byron Bell. Wow, the team can see three players and do a little evaluation on them. How novel a concept? What gets me is some of the beat writers making a big deal out of this. By all means look at Collins at RT, smart move, but writing it up as though its a done deal, see me in three months. When we see Collins in Oxnard, with pads on in week three & lined up to the right of Zack Martin, then its a real and happening thing. Until then, they’re just looking at a few players to evaluate them, as much Cooper. Bell or Collins. Bell has seven years of experience at OT, but they could kick him inside to LG. Plenty of options and players to look at in OTA’s & camp. Looking to put the best five players out there has to be their goal, but wait until camp and a few preseason games before getting carried away with Collins being the new RT. My belief is they’d prefer to keep Collins inside at LG if at all possible. The whole story out there could have and should have been that the Cowboys are looking at all options at LG & RT. Simple, right?

Next topic that has been reported since the draft and that’s the “trading” of Orlando Scandrick. When I first heard that, it really surprised me. Had to be more to the story. My radar told me that it was highly possible that Orlando was looking for a new contract, one more time. Every two years or so it seems that he wants his deal redone and with the departure of Claiborne & Carr, not beyond the realm of thinking to believe he wanted some of those dollars departing the team’s cap. From my seat, his contract is team friendly with a reasonably low base for a CB. Makes me feel, that no way the team was letting him go unless they thought is last injury has him on a steep decline. What I learned from watching Cowboys Break, was something said by Bryan Broaddus. The team’s pro player personnel director, Judd Garrett, told Orlando’s agent that he could seek a trade with other teams a little over six weeks ago. I didn’t see any way that the team would go into the season with only one CB with more than two or three years of experience. Makes you ask questions when you have a player that has had repeated issues with his contract. Totally agree with Orlando, that he’s been underpaid for a starting caliber CB, but he’s the one who keeps signing on the bottom line. Best CB we had and yet Carr was making three times as much. We could all feels his pain on that. There is only one other possibility for the team being willing to trade him and that has to do with how things roll inside the locker room. Its not a big secret that Orlando has made it difficult on other CB’s being brought in, potentially taking his place. It’s a tough way for all players in the NFL in keeping their jobs. But this was not a surprise to Scandrick when the story first leaked. Had he been able to secure a particular draft pick and gotten the money he wanted then the trade would have gone through. Ask yourself this, in a league where you can’t have enough CB’s, why would the Cowboys want to trade their best CB when healthy?

A lot is being written & questions are flying about Jaylon Smith participating in the rookie mini camp upcoming this weekend. The likelihood is he won’t be participating. Oh my, the humanity, what’s wrong that he won’t be out there? NOTHING is wrong people, they’re just being cautious with him. Went back and found this tweet by Jaylon, giving us all a peak at how well he’s doing, moving, changing directions, etc. By the way, this is from back in February and he’s doing even better now that the nerve is starting to fire as his surgeon projected it would. Going forward, don’t expect him to be in any or many physical drills in OTA’s. Remember Sean Lee’s injury, first day of OTA’s? Bet Garrett and Jerry haven’t!

If you’re not hearing that he’s in pads and hitting during these dates, don’t worry. Organized Team Activities are currently scheduled for May 23-25, May 30-31, June 1 & June 5-7. That’s followed by the mandatory minicamp which will be from June 13-15. I only see Jaylon doing things that are non contact (walk thru’s) until they get to Oxnard around July 22nd. So relax as they get him football ready and able for preseason action. Don’t expect more than a series or two in one, maybe two games at most. Look for the dress rehearsal game to be the key barometer. The real story should be that Jaylon Smith is on or ahead of schedule & his participation at OTA’s will be limited until training camp. We should be excited about where he is versus where he was and that all indications he’ll be ready for opening day.